Advertising

Advertising is often used to make consumers aware of a product’s special low price or its benefits. But an even more important function of advertising is to create an image that consumers associate with a product, known as the brand image. The brand image goes far beyond the functional characteristics of the product. For example, a soft drink may have a particular taste that is one of its benefits. But when consumers think of it, they not only think of its taste, but they may also associate it with high energy, extreme action, unconventional behavior, and youth. All of those meanings have been added to the product by advertising. Consumers frequently buy the product not only for its functional characteristics but also because they want to be identified with the image associated with the brand.

By adding meaning to a product, advertising also adds value. For example, when Philip Morris Companies Inc. purchased Kraft Foods, Inc. in 1988 for nearly $13 billion, Philip Morris paid 600 percent more than Kraft’s factories and inventory were worth. Over 80 percent of the purchase price was for the current and future value of the Kraft brand, a value that was created in large part by advertising. Advertising plays such an important role in promoting products and adding value to brands that most companies spend considerable sums on their advertising and hire specialized firms, known as advertising agencies, to develop their advertising campaigns.

Advertising is most frequently done on television, radio, and billboards; in newspapers, magazines, and catalogs; and through direct mail to the consumers. In recent years, numerous advertising agencies have joined forces to become giant agencies, making it possible for them to offer their clients a comprehensive range of worldwide promotion services.

DIRECT SELLING

Where advertising reaches a mass audience, personal or direct selling focuses on one customer at a time. That kind of individual attention makes direct selling expensive, but it also makes it effective. As the costs of personal selling have risen, the utilization of salespeople has changed. Simple transactions are completed by clerks. Salespeople are now used primarily where the products are complex and require detailed explanation, customized application, or careful negotiation over price and payment plan. But whether the sale involves an automobile or a customized computer network, personal selling involves much more than convincing the customer of the product’s benefits. The salesperson helps the customer identify problems, works out a variety of solutions, assists the buyer in making decisions, and provides arrangements for long-term service. Persuasion is only part of the job. A much more important part is problem solving.

Because the selling process has become much more complicated, most companies now provide extensive training for the sales force. The average length of the initial training program is four months. A training program for new members of the sales force teaches them about such matters as company history, selling and presentation techniques, listening skills, the manufacture and use of the company’s products, and the characteristics of both the industry and its customers. Moreover, because the sales force plays such a critical role in the marketing process, most companies provide on-going training for all members of the sales force to help them deepen their product knowledge and improve their interpersonal and negotiating skills.

With the increasing complexity of business problems and products, effective sales solutions often require more knowledge than any one person can master. As a result many companies now use sales teams to service their largest and most complicated accounts. Such teams might include personnel from sales, marketing, manufacturing, finance, and technical support.

SALES PROMOTION

SALES PROMOTION
The purpose of sales promotion is to supplement and coordinate advertising and personal selling; this has become increasingly important in marketing. While advertising helps build brand image and long-term value, sales promotion builds sales volume. Sales promotions are designed to persuade consumers to purchase immediately by providing special incentives such as cash rebates, prizes, extra product, or gifts. Promotions are an effective way to spur sales, but because they involve discount coupons and contests with valuable prizes, they are also expensive and so reduce profits.

RELATIONSHIP BUILDING
In the past, most advertising and promotional efforts were developed to acquire new customers. But today, more and more advertising and promotional efforts are designed to retain current customers and to increase the amount of money they spend with the company. Consumers see so much advertising that they have learned to ignore much of it. As a result, it has become more difficult to attract new customers. Servicing existing customers, however, is easier and less expensive. In fact, it is estimated that acquiring a new customer costs five to eight times as much as keeping an existing one.

To retain current customers, some companies develop loyalty programs such as the frequent flyer programs used by many airlines. A marketer may also seek to retain customers by learning a customer’s individual interests and then tailoring services to meet them. Amazon.com, for example, keeps a database of the types of books customers have ordered in the past and then recommends new books to them based on their past selections. Such programs help companies retain customers not only by providing a useful service, but also by making customers feel appreciated. This is known as relationship building.

DISTRIBUTING THE PRODUCT

Some products are marketed most effectively by direct sale from manufacturer to consumer. Among these are durable equipment such as computers, office equipment, industrial machinery and supplies, and consumer specialties such as vacuum cleaners and life insurance. The direct marketing of products such as cosmetics and household needs is very important. Formerly common “door to door products,” these are now usually sold by the more sophisticated “house party” technique.

Many types of products and services now use direct mail catalogs or have a presence on the World Wide Web. Because many people are extremely busy, they may find it simpler to shop in their leisure hours at home by using catalogs or visiting Web sites. Comparison shopping is also made easier, because both catalogs and e-commerce sites generally contain extensive product information. For retailers, catalogs and the Web make it possible to do business far beyond their usual trading area and with a minimum of overhead. More than 95 percent of the leading 1,000 companies in the United States sell products over the Internet.

Television is a potent tool in direct marketing because it facilitates the demonstration of products in use. Direct sale of all kinds of goods to the public via home-shopping clubs broadcasting on cable television channels is gaining in popularity. Some companies also use telephone marketing, called telemarketing, a technique used in selling to businesses as well as to consumers. Most consumer products, however, move from the manufacturer through agents to wholesalers and then to retailers, ultimately reaching the consumer. Determining how products should move through wholesale and retail organizations is another major marketing decision.

Wholesalers distribute goods in large quantities, usually to retailers, for resale. Some retail businesses have grown so large, however, that they have found it more profitable to bypass the wholesaler and deal directly with the manufacturers or their agents. Wholesalers first responded to this trend by changing their operations to move goods more quickly to large retailers and at lower prices. Small retailers fought back through cooperative wholesaling, the voluntary banding together of independent retailers to market a product. The result has been a trend toward a much closer, interlocking relationship between wholesaler and independent retailer.

Retailing has undergone even more changes than wholesaling. Intensive preselling by manufacturers and the development of minimum-service operations, such as self-service in department stores, have drastically changed the retailer’s way of doing business. Supermarkets and discount stores have become commonplace not only for groceries but for products as diversified as medicines and gardening equipment. More recently, warehouse retailing has become a major means of retailing higher-priced consumer goods such as furniture, appliances, and electronic equipment. The emphasis is on generating store traffic, speeding up the transaction, and rapidly expanding the sales volume. Chain stores—groups of stores with one owner—and cooperative groups have also proliferated. Special types of retailing, such as vending machines and convenience stores, have also developed to fill multiple needs.

Transporting and warehousing merchandise are also technically within the scope of marketing. Products are often moved several times as they go from producer to consumer. Products are carried by rail, truck, ship, airplane, and pipeline. Efficient traffic management determines the best method and timetable of shipment for any particular product.

SERVICES AND MARKETING

SERVICES AND MARKETING
Marketing efforts once focused primarily on the selling of manufactured products such as cars and aspirin. But today the service industries have grown more important to the economy than the manufacturing sector. Services, unlike products, are intangible and involve a deed, a performance, or an effort that cannot be physically possessed. Currently, more people are employed in the provision of services than in the manufacture of products, and this area shows every indication of expanding even further. In fact, more than eight in ten U.S. workers labor in such service areas as transportation, retail, health care, entertainment, and education. In the United States alone, service industries now account for more than 70 percent of the gross national product (GNP, the total of all goods and services produced by a country) and are expected to provide 90 percent of all new jobs by 2012.

Services, like products, require marketing. Usually, service marketing parallels product marketing with the exception of physical handling. Services must be planned and developed carefully to meet consumer demand. For example, in the field of temporary personnel, a service that continues to increase in monetary value, studies are made to determine the types of employee skills needed in various geographical locations and fields of business. Because services are more difficult to sell than physical products, promotional campaigns for services must be even more aggressive than those for physical commodities.

MARKETING RESEARCH

MARKETING RESEARCH
Marketing research helps businesses identify consumer needs and wants so a company can develop and promote products more successfully. Such research also provides the information upon which important advertising and marketing decisions are based.



There are two types of research: qualitative and quantitative. To gain a general impression of the market, consumers, or the product, companies generally start with qualitative research. This approach asks open-ended rather than yes or no questions in order to enable people to explain their thoughts, feelings, or beliefs in detail. One of the most common qualitative research techniques is the focus group in which a moderator leads a discussion among a small group of consumers who are typical of the target market. The discussion usually involves a particular product, service, or marketing situation. Focus groups can yield insights into consumer perceptions and attitudes, but the findings cannot be applied to the whole market, because the sample size is too small. Focus group results, then, are suggestive rather than definitive.

The insights generated by a focus group are often explored further through quantitative research, which provides reliable, hard statistics. This type of research uses closed-ended questions, enabling the researcher to determine the exact percentage of people who answered yes or no to a question or who selected answer a, b, c, or d on a questionnaire. One of the most common quantitative research techniques is the survey in which researchers sample the opinions of a large group of people. If the sample group is large enough and is representative of a particular group, such as executives who use cell phones, statisticians consider the findings statistically valid, which means that if all consumers in that particular category could be surveyed, the findings would still be the same. This means that quantitative findings are conclusive in a way that qualitative findings cannot be.

FORCES AFFECTING MODERN MARKETING

FORCES AFFECTING MODERN MARKETING
Of all the forces affecting modern marketing, perhaps none is more important than globalization. Since the 1980s, technological advances such as global telephone and computer networks have reduced geographic and even cultural distance. As a result, companies can now buy supplies and produce and sell goods in countries far from their home offices. Products conceived in one country are now being manufactured and then sold in many others. For example, Sony (Japan), Nestlé (Switzerland), Bic (France), and Volkswagen (Germany) have become household words around the world.

Although being able to market goods far from home presents corporations with many new opportunities, it also means they face new competition. Local companies that never even considered international competition now find foreign competitors stocked on shelves right alongside their own products. Some economists argue that local companies should be protected from such competition through legislation that regulates the flow of goods through trade barriers and other measures. Others oppose such regulation, arguing that it only raises prices for consumers.

Globalization, however, is only one force changing the way companies market their products or services. Another involves changes in the very interests and desires of consumers themselves. Consumers today are more sophisticated than those of past generations. They attend school for a much longer period of time; they are exposed to newspapers, magazines, motion pictures, radio, television, and travel; and they have much greater interaction with other people. Their demands are more exacting, and their taste changes more volatile. Markets tend to be segmented as each group calls for products suited to its particular tastes. “Positioning” the product—that is, determining the exact segment of the population that is likely to buy a product, and then developing a marketing campaign to enhance the product’s image to fit that particular segment—requires great care and planning. This type of campaign is known as target marketing.

Competition also has sharply intensified, as the number of firms engaged in producing similar products has increased. Each firm tries to differentiate its products from those of its competitors. Profit margins, meaning the profit percentages made by a business per dollar of sales, are constantly being lessened. Although costs continue to rise, competition tends to keep prices down. The result is a narrowing spread between costs and selling prices. An increase in a business’s sales volume is necessary to maintain or raise profit.

Another force affecting modern marketing is the influence of the consumer rights or consumer protection movement. This movement insists on safe, reputable, and reliable products and services. Both consumer groups and government agencies have intensified their scrutiny of products, challenging such diverse elements as product design, length and legitimacy of warranty, and promotional tactics. Warranty and guarantee practices, in particular, have been closely examined. New legislation has generally defined and extended the manufacturer’s responsibility for product performance.

Environmental concerns have also affected product design and marketing, especially as the expense of product modification has increased the retail cost. Such forces, which have added to the friction between producer and consumer, must be understood by the marketer and integrated into a sound marketing program.

Even the way a firm handles itself in public life—that is, how it reacts to social and political issues—has become significant. No longer may a corporation cloak its internal decisions as private affairs. The public’s dissatisfaction with the actions and attitudes of a firm has sometimes led to a reduction in sales; conversely, consumer enthusiasm, generated by a firm’s intentional establishment of a good public image or public relations, has led to increased sales.

MARKETING DEVELOPMENTS

SPECIALIZED MARKETING DEVELOPMENTS
The success of specialized marketing developments has caused many older organizations to revise their operating methods. In recent years, for example, franchise distribution has become an important force in retailing. Under this plan, the retailer is given the right to sell, within a certain area, without competition from another retailer dealing in the same product.

Many consumers now find it more desirable to rent products than to purchase them outright. For example, a homeowner may find it preferable to rent an electric floor polisher when needed, rather than purchase the appliance at the list price, use it only infrequently, and then have to provide storage space within the home. Another item consumers have found easier and less expensive to rent is the automobile. The renting of equipment also figures in large industry. Corporations are finding it to their economic advantage to rent computers and office and industrial machinery, thereby assuring themselves of product servicing and repair and allowing a changeover, without great expense, to newer equipment models as they become available.

Businesses must strive daily to outdo competitors. The methods available to businesses for distinguishing their commodity from others in the market are subject only to their ingenuity. Such methods may include product improvement, a unique promotional campaign, a new twist in servicing, a change in distribution channels, or an enticing price adjustment.

THE MARKETING PROFESSION
As marketing has become increasingly more complex, a need has arisen for professional marketers trained in the social sciences that also possess statistical, mathematical, and computer backgrounds. Many colleges and universities now have programs designed to train marketing executives. Courses are offered at the undergraduate and the graduate level in such specialized fields as advertising, administrative practices, financial management, production, human relations, retailing, and personnel administration.

In recent years, as many U.S. manufacturing industries such as steel and automobiles have been weakened because of foreign competition, marketing departments have become increasingly responsible for generating profitable sales volume. Thus, their stature in top-level business decision-making has been enhanced. This trend gives every indication of continuing in the foreseeable future. As competition continues to increase and businesses become even more diversified, the marketing profession is likely to provide more personnel in the ranks of top management.

University of Oxford

INTRODUCTION
Oxford, University of, oldest institution of higher learning in the English-speaking world. The university is located in Oxford, England.

HISTORY
The town of Oxford was already an important center of learning by the end of the 12th century. Teachers from mainland Europe and other scholars settled there, and lectures are known to have been delivered by as early as 1117. Sometime in the late 12th century the expulsion of foreigners from the University of Paris (see Paris, Universities of) caused many English scholars to return from France and settle in Oxford. The students associated together, on the basis of geographical origins, into two “nations,” representing the North (including the Scots) and the South (including the Irish and the Welsh). In later centuries, geographical origins continued to influence many students' affiliations when membership of an Oxford college or hall became customary. Members of many religious orders, including Dominicans, Franciscans, Carmelites, and Augustinians, settled in Oxford in the mid-13th century, gained influence, and maintained houses for students. At about the same time, private benefactors established colleges to serve as self-contained scholarly communities. Among the earliest were the parents of John Balliol, King of Scotland; their establishment, Balliol College, bears their name. Another founder, Walter de Merton, a chancellor of England and afterwards bishop of Rochester, devised a series of regulations for college life; Merton College thereby became the model for such establishments at Oxford as well as at the University of Cambridge. Thereafter, an increasing number of students forsook living in halls and religious houses in favor of living at colleges.

The new learning of the Renaissance greatly influenced Oxford from the late 15th century onward. Among university scholars of the period were William Grocyn, who contributed to the revival of the Greek language, and John Colet, the noted biblical scholar. With the Reformation and the breaking of ties with Catholicism, the method of teaching at the university was transformed from the medieval Scholastic method to Renaissance education, although institutions associated with the university suffered loss of land and revenues. In 1636 Chancellor William Laud, archbishop of Canterbury, codified the university statutes; these to a large extent remained the university's governing regulations until the mid-19th century. Laud was also responsible for the granting of a charter securing privileges for the university press, and he made significant contributions to the Bodleian Library, the main library of the university.

The university was a center of the Royalist Party during the English Civil War (1642-1649), while the town favored the opposing Parliamentarian cause. Soldier-statesman Oliver Cromwell, chancellor of the university from 1650 to 1657, was responsible for preventing both Oxford and Cambridge from being closed down by the Puritans, who viewed university education as dangerous to religious beliefs. From the mid-18th century onward, however, the University of Oxford took little part in political conflicts.

Administrative reforms during the 19th century included the replacement of oral examinations with written entrance tests, greater tolerance for religious dissent, and the establishment of four colleges for women. Women have been eligible to be full members of the university and have been entitled to take degrees since 1920. Although Oxford's emphasis traditionally had been on classical knowledge, its curriculum expanded in the course of the 19th century and now attaches equal importance to scientific and medical studies.

The roster of distinguished scholars at the University of Oxford is long and includes many who have made major contributions to British politics, the sciences, and literature. Since its founding in 1823, the Oxford Union, a university club devoted to formal debating and other social activities, has numbered among its members many of Britain's most noted political leaders.

BUILDINGS AND LIBRARIES
Notable amid the predominantly Gothic architecture of the university is Christ Church's Tom Quad, the largest quadrangle in the university. It houses above its gateway Great Tom, a 7-ton bell. Other famed structures are the Sheldonian Theatre, designed by the English architect, scientist, and mathematician Sir Christopher Wren and used as an assembly hall, and the domed Radcliffe Camera, used as one of the reading rooms of the Bodleian Library.

The main university library, the Bodleian, was built in the early 17th century as an extension to the university's existing 15th-century library. Its collections were established in 1602 by the English scholar and diplomat Sir Thomas Bodley, who gave the university a collection of books he had purchased in Europe. The present collection of bound volumes and manuscripts includes valuable holdings of biblical codices, Far Eastern literature, and material on British history. Like the British Library, the Bodleian is a copyright library, entitled to receive a copy of every book published in the United Kingdom.
Among several university museums is the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, with fine collections of Eastern and European art and Middle Eastern archaeology. The first public museum in Great Britain, it was founded by the English antiquary Elias Ashmole and was opened in 1683.

Books were first printed for the university in 1478, soon after William Caxton printed the first book in England. Today the Oxford University Press annually publishes hundreds of distinguished books of scholarly and general interest, including the renowned Oxford English Dictionary

Distance Education

Distance Education, methods of instruction that utilize different communications technologies to carry teaching to learners in different places. Distance education programs enable learners and teachers to interact with each other by means of computers, artificial satellites, telephones, radio or television broadcasting, or other technologies. Instruction conducted through the mail is often referred to as correspondence education, although many educators simply consider this the forerunner to distance education. Distance education is also sometimes called distance learning. While distance learning can refer to either formal or informal learning experiences, distance education refers specifically to formal instruction conducted at a distance by a teacher who plans, guides, and evaluates the learning process. As new communications technologies become more efficient and more widely available, increasing numbers of elementary schools, secondary schools, universities, and businesses offer distance education programs.

Nearly every country in the world makes use of distance education programs in its education system. Britain’s nationally supported Open University, based in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England, has one of the best-known programs. A vast majority of the school’s 133,000 students receive instruction entirely at a distance. More than 20 other countries have national open universities in which all instruction is provided by distance education methods. This method of education can be especially valuable in developing countries. By reaching a large number of students with relatively few teachers, it provides a cost-effective way of using limited academic resources. Many businesses use distance education programs to train employees or to help them update skills or knowledge. Employees may take such programs in the workplace or at home in their spare time.

PROGRAMS IN THE UNITED STATES
In the United States, institutions of higher education, business, and the armed services all use distance education methods. Millions of students have enrolled in television courses produced by certain colleges and universities around the country. The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) delivers these courses to students at over 2000 institutions. A growing number of private businesses, including multinational corporations, operate satellite television networks to deliver vocational training to employees throughout the world. The United States Army offers distance education programs to military personnel stationed in different parts of the country. These programs are conducted by the Army Logistics Management College, based in Fort Lee, Virginia, and delivered over the Internet and in one-way video/two-way audio systems to over 70 locations. The United States Air Force also offers distance education programs through the Air Technology Network (ATN), a division of the Air Force Institute of Technology. The ATN uses one-way video/two way audio telecommunications systems to reach students at every Air Force base in the continental United States.

Distance education offered through colleges and universities in the United States provides instruction in a wide range of academic and vocational subjects. The National University Teleconference Network (NUTN) is a consortium of approximately 260 colleges and universities that offer distance education programs in most fields of knowledge. The National Technological University (NTU), based in Fort Collins, Colorado, offers hundreds of courses taught by faculty at dozens of major universities. The Agricultural Satellite Corporation provides courses on agricultural topics to many colleges and universities. HealthNet, an institution operated by Boston University Medical School, carries continuing education courses for health care professionals. The Black College Satellite Network (BCSN) broadcasts primarily from Howard University with programs aimed at colleges around the country.

A number of institutions offer complete college degree programs via computer conferencing. The Online Campus of the New York Institute of Technology offers bachelor’s degrees in science. A distance education program called Connect Ed offers a master’s degree in Technology and Society in conjunction with the New School for Social Research in New York City. The University of Phoenix Online, a program at the University of Phoenix, offers computer-based courses leading to degrees in business and management. The Open University in Britain offers a master’s degree in the field of distance education to anyone in the world who can access the Internet.

INSTRUCTION
Each medium of communication carries certain advantages over the other. The most effective distance education employs several telecommunications media linked together so that learners can benefit from the strengths of each one. For example, a student may watch an instructor’s lecture on a video monitor, respond with questions through electronic mail on a computer, and then participate in class discussions through telephone audio-conferencing. Distance education programs require teams of media producers, teaching specialists, and experts in academic subjects to design effective teaching strategies. Other specialists plan and facilitate communications with learners. Because such programs can be expensive to produce, institutions usually design distance education courses for relatively large audiences and wide geographic areas.

Distance education has created a major shift in how educators and students think about teaching and learning. By allowing students to learn in more convenient locations and often at more convenient times, distance education opens educational opportunity to previously un reached populations. It also enables more people to extend the period of their education from a limited number of schooling years to a lifelong learning process. In addition, it changes power and authority relationships between teachers and learners, often encouraging more equal and open communication than occurs in conventional educational settings. Because distance education enables institutions to reach students all over the world, learners gain increased opportunities to experience other cultures and enrich their educational experience.

Entrepreneur

Entrepreneur, one who assumes the responsibility and the risk for a business operation with the expectation of making a profit. The entrepreneur generally decides on the product, acquires the facilities, and brings together the labor force, capital, and production materials. If the business succeeds, the entrepreneur reaps the reward of profits; if it fails, he or she takes the loss.

In his writings, the Austrian-American economist Joseph A. Schumpeter stressed the role of the entrepreneur as an innovator, the person who develops a new product, a new market, or a new means of production. One important example was Henry Ford. In the industrialized economies of the late 20th century, giant corporations and conglomerates have largely replaced the individual owner-operator. There is still a place for the entrepreneur, however, in small businesses as well as in the developing economies of the Third World nations.

INTRODUCTION
Business Education, field of training in business practices and in specific skills such as accounting, information processing, keyboarding/typewriting, recordkeeping, and shorthand. Business education in the United States is conducted on two distinct levels: education for administrative support personnel in business and industry and collegiate education for business administration and for business teacher preparation.

VOCATIONAL EDUCATION
Business education for administrative support personnel is included in the programs of almost every high school and community college, as well as in independent business colleges. Included in such curricula are courses in secretarial skills; bookkeeping and accounting; data processing; business communication, mathematics, and law; computer programming; and business management. These courses are important to the U.S. economy because they provide a steady flow of office workers who are in great demand.

PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION
Colleges and universities provide professional education for persons who function at the administrative and management levels and also for those who teach business at the secondary and collegiate levels. The first business school at the collegiate level was the Wharton School of Finance and Commerce, founded in 1881 at the University of Pennsylvania. Today about 1200 colleges offer programs leading to a bachelor's degree in business administration. More than 600 schools have graduate programs leading to the master's, and about 100 have doctoral programs in the field.

The typical college of business administration offers concentrations in accounting, finance, marketing, manufacturing, management information systems, operations management, and international business. Many business schools now offer education in areas not usually classified as business, such as governmental or public administration and institutional management. Enrollment in undergraduate schools of business administration is now more than 2.5 million students, and graduate enrollment is about 200,000.

ORGANIZATIONS AND JOURNALS
The largest professional organization in the U.S. devoted exclusively to serving business education is the national Business Education Association. Professional associations also exist in each specialized field of business. The professional association serving college business programs is the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business. While no single publication covers all fields, Business Education Forum and the Journal of Education for Business deal with a variety of areas included in education for business. Individual fields are served by such journals as the Journal of Accountancy and the Journal of Marketing.

MODERN TRENDS
The development of the computer has effected many changes in business education. At the vocational level it has led to the establishment of training programs for computer operators and programmers. At the collegiate level the emphasis has been on utilization of more efficient management information systems to provide data for making business decisions.